


Descartes Blanche

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: DCU (Comics), Doom Patrol, Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Brief Description of Torture, M/M, the frankenstein love story I deserve HONESTLY, too much attention paid to scientist's mouth; film at 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7108585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief chronology of the murder of the man who became the Brain; or, Mallah's master needs to stop doing that thing with his lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Descartes Blanche

His master had taught him nothing substantive of perversion. Oh, there were the occasional references – all of Leviticus, for one thing – but there was also Machiavelli, and Nietzsche, and even aspects of Freud to drive home the relativity of it all. From what Mallah could tell, “transgression” was simply what humans tended to call unfashionable daring, and that only after the fact.

He felt that it was therefore all the more remarkable that Mallah should have not only a moral sense, but even a sense of shame.

He spent an episode with apes in captivity during the later years of his development. Mallah moved among them like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, surprised despite himself that the apes seemed to perceive nothing unusual about him. To them, he appeared to be just an unfamiliar ape. It was actually a little irritating.

The encounter was quietly informative – enough to bring home to him just how much he enjoyed regular baths and sleeping indoors, at least – until a female solicited him by pursing her lips. Mallah recoiled, appalled, and very nearly snapped at her. His body knew the signal, but where there should have been some kind of urge to rut, he could only feel absolute revulsion. The female slapped the ground and Mallah turned his head away, shuddering. She huffed and moved on.

Once he was sure that she’d left, Mallah let out a shaky breath. Well. That was certainly interesting! He had very little memory of anything before his master began the experiments on him, so he had precious little idea what his sexual history had been before.

Why was this his reaction? He took a scientific approach to it, discreetly considering the other males around him. Perhaps the problem was one of orientation?

Mallah took a deep breath to steady himself for the exploration ahead and nearly choked, the stink of sweat and feces and urine flooding his olfactories. And the thought of getting closer – ugh! His gorge rising, Mallah hastily pulled himself away from the pack and retreated to the limits of the gorilla enclosure. He signalled to his escort that he wished to be removed, identified himself by name, and knuckled down to the decontamination showers near his master’s laboratory.

Naturally, Mallah took the information to his master. He wasn’t angry, if his master had destroyed his sex drive – on the contrary! His master would have to be more than cruel, to make Mallah an intellectually superior being to the rest of his species but leave him lusting for the flesh of creatures of a colossally different magnitude. What a vile humiliation that would be!

Mallah recounted his experience to his master during a coffee break. His master hummed quietly over his mug, watching Mallah carefully.

“No,” his master murmured, looking at Mallah with eyes like forceps. "I did nothing intentional to your limbic system. Are you very curious about your experience? I can find out what your body’s sexual proclivities were before, if you’d like ze additional context.“

Mallah’s stomach turned over. "Oh, no. It’s unscientific of me, but I’d really rather not know. Ignorance is most certainly bliss.”

His master smiled. "If you’re sure. You know, it’s often said zat ze brain is ze most significant sexual organ – for beings capable of abstract cognition, zat is. While of course we can mechanically copulate, we aren’t really aroused until you turn on our minds.”

“Indeed?”

“Oh, yes. We zink we find our partners attractive not only for zeir genetic and physical attributes but also for zeir intellectual and personal traits. Sense of humor and ze like. Perhaps zis is ze issue you’re running into. You might disdain ze physically-compatible potential mates you encounter because you can have no equality with zem, on the basis of zeir relative cretinhood.”

Mallah squinted a little. "Hmm.“

His master eyed him over the rim of his coffee cup. “You’re not convinced.”

“I’m only a little scandalized,” Mallah drawled. "Here I’d been very sure that humans had some kind of use for one another’s genitals. But if you’re all sexually attracted to the grey matter within one another’s skulls, well. Love-making must be an awfully bloody business.“

His master’s eyes went wide and he let out a rich, sharp bark of laughter.

“Mall- _ah!_ ” he scolded. “How absolutely horrific!”

Mallah gave him a dry, indulgent kind of smile.

“I certainly did not teach you anyzing zat foul!” His master shook his head, eyes boring into Mallah’s as he made a rather squinched-up expression of exaggerated disapproval.

He pursed his lips.

Mallah’s stomach swooped. He felt his jaw go slack. His blood ran hot under his skin.

His master’s lips were a delicate shade of damask pink, set in a face that saw neither as much sleep nor as much sunlight as it should’ve. The lips were just full enough to beckon, entirely unroughened, luridly soft and vulnerable. The plush peaks of his cupid’s bow stood out, offered in unmistakable invitation.

And his master smelled good. Clean and dry and just a little hot.

Mallah felt his entire body pulse. He let out a soft grunt.

Scorching, sticky shame caught him an instant later. He almost fell out of his chair.

His master didn’t seem to notice, grinning as he scratched something down on his notepad. “Quite a morbid sense of humor you have, Mallah! No wonder none of ze apes caught your fancy. Who could keep up?”

Mallah’s mind reeled. He let out a breathless huff, still staring. His master mistook it for a snort.

“Well, zat does make for an interesting finding,” his master agreed. “Perhaps we can consider a little study in psychology in ze near future, hmm? For now… I’m afraid I have rather too much on my plate today to arrange a meeting. You’re welcome to phone around and see if anyone will talk, but in ze meanwhile I’d like you to read LeCroix’s latest and tell me if it’s anything worth spending time on.”

“I–” Mallah swallowed. “I read it this morning.”

“Ah, excellent. Would you like to write a rebuttal? Or does it not deserve ze attention?”

“I think enough wood pulp’s been wasted on the subject,” Mallah croaked. He was staring at his master’s lips. He tried to look at the table, or at least at his eyes. “Phoning LeCroix up and making a rude noise in his ear would be about as useful a rebuttal as any.”

His master made an amused little sound. Mallah tried not to hear it too clearly, lest he try and remember it.

“Very well. I have faith in your judgment.” His master nodded his head towards the stacked towers of papers and folders standing perilously on the desks and counters of the lab. “As to productive work, then, ze files want attention. Do you suppose you could get after zem today?”

Mallah’s skin prickled.

“Yes, master. Let me just excuse myself for a mo–”

The office door swung open and a figure appeared in the doorway. Mallah caught the faint musk scent of another male on the air and glowered.

His master turned to look at the intruder. “Ah. Dr. Caulder. Good morning. Zis is a pleasant surprise.”

The man in the doorway rolled into the office and spoke. “Teaching your pet circus tricks again, Doctor?”

Mallah wanted to growl. His master cut him a sharp, swift look.

“Just chatting about LeCroix’s latest monograph. May I help you, doctor?”

Caulder’s wheelchair rolled another few feet into the office, approaching Mallah’s master.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I wanted to discuss–” The bearded man looked at Mallah scornfully. “Does your lab experiment really need to stare quite so much?”

Mallah felt his eyes widen. Unthinking, he bared his teeth and let out a low rumble. Caulder’s eyebrows rose, but Mallah saw the uncertainty in his eyes. Yes. That was right. If Caulder wanted to treat him like an animal, it was an animal he’d get. Mallah could rip him to bloody tatters.

“Quite a savage thing, isn’t it?” Caulder muttered.

Savage! The man didn’t know the meaning of the word. He should pull Caulder’s puny head off and impale it on a ring stand. How was that for turning on a human’s brain?

“He understands human facial expressions,” his master said quickly. “And tones. I must insist zat you treat him more respectfully, if zis meeting is to remain professional.”

“Ah, yes. It is your assistant, isn’t it?”

“He is, Dr. Caulder.” His master stood on his own two feet and faced Caulder. Mallah’s hands twitched. He should grab his master and pull him back across the room. How dare he stand so close to Caulder, when Caulder smelled like this? “Is zere anything I can do for you today?”

“I prefer to discuss my research privately,” Caulder said. His face was neutral, but his voice held a sneer. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Mallah’s blood coursed too hot inside him. Foul. Foul!

“If it will induce you to come to your point…” his master remarked sardonically. He looked at Mallah. “Would you excuse us, Monsieur Mallah? This could be a while.”

Mallah gritted his teeth behind his lips.

His master frowned. “Mallah.”

Mallah blew out a hard breath and rose from his seat. “Of course, master.”

“Thank you.”

Mallah went on all fours, pulling himself towards the door. He passed close enough to Caulder to let the wretched little human get a whiff of him, before moving out into the hallway. Once he was out in the fresher air of the hall, everything of the last few moments came rushing in upon him.

Oh, no. Oh, _no._

He had free run of the department, thanks to his master lobbying on his behalf, and he hurried along to the bathroom, praying he wouldn’t collide with any other scientists along the way.

He made it without interference and quickly locked the door behind him. Shuddering, Mallah let his weight rest against the solid panel as he stared at the ceiling, gulping for breath. His head spun and he dared not close his eyes, lest he see his master’s lips pursed against his eyelids.

Mallah groaned. His master didn’t know. He didn’t think of it in that way, it was obvious! It was just an expression, something cultural. Humans were different, after all. Why, in the Philippines they did that to point!

He grunted quietly to himself, shame working itself over him in waves. It wasn’t what it looked like. His master didn’t want him to rip off that white coat and push him down, seize him by the hips and rut him like a– a–

Mallah lurched over to the sink and only barely restrained himself from ripping off the cold water handle. An icy torrent churned out of the faucet and he filled his hands, throwing it in his face and scrubbing. He didn’t look in the mirror.

No. No, this was wrong. He didn’t want to mate with animals, but he couldn’t– he mustn’t want his master like that. Or any human! And he’d been so furious, when Caulder entered the lab, when the man was nothing more than a mere nuisance!

This was wrong, if anything was! His master belonged to an entirely different species! Mallah’s brain might be superhuman, but it was made of ape cells!

Mallah stopped himself short and made himself breathe deeply. It was a spontaneous flash of instinct. That was all. If he panicked and let himself hyperventilate, it would only be worse. Mallah closed his eyes, listening to the running water, and counted out prime numbers until his heart was steady.

It was merely an issue of frustration. He was a healthy male of potent age. Of course he was frustrated! And the fact that he hadn’t mated in, goodness, years, only served to exacerbate the issue.

He wanted sex. Fair enough. There was nothing wrong with that, nor with wanting sex from a male. But he couldn’t bring himself to have it with an animal, so he’d briefly, briefly fixated on something not-animal. That was all. It could be forgotten.

It had to be forgotten.

He stayed in the bathroom until he felt he could go back to his own enclosure. To hell with organizing files. Consider this his coffee break, and he'd deal with the scolding later.  For now, he needed to clear his mind. He needed rip something limb from limb.

There had to be a crash test dummy around here that he could “borrow.”

* * *

He was on the other side of the complex, dealing with some kind of trivial bureaucratic issue that was nowhere near as character-building as his master wished to claim it was. No wonder, in fact, that his master asked his assistant to do it. If Mallah had an assistant of his own, he’d absolutely foist off paperwork on them. Doigts de seigneur, he supposed, and at least his master had asked very sweetly. Full “monsieur” and everything.

But that meant he was far away, when when the explosion happened. It rocked the campus, too short and sudden to be mistaken for an earthquake. Mallah hurried out of the administrative building with the humans. After a moment of getting his bearings, he looked for the plume of smoke and found it rising, to his horror, from an all-too familiar direction.

Mallah’s throat closed up. He dropped to all fours and began to race to the lab, plunging headlong through scrambling first responders and shoving inconveniently-placed vehicles out of the way. No, no, no. Let it be the chemistry lab. Let it be the fault of some idiot grad student a floor a way. Let it be the next office over, let it be a dead school tour group, let it be anything but–

His master’s office was belching smoke. The first responders didn’t know who Mallah was, and he was not of a mind to waste time explaining; not when it was easy to push them aside and disappear into the smoking lab.

The stink of the explosives made it too hard to really smell, but he saw the blood even before he started spotting pieces of a human body scattered here and there. A foot here; a hand with only two fingers there; shredded, miscellaneous scraps; burned and drenched tatters of clothing everywhere; chunks of steaming, ruined meat lying on the ground.

“It’s not him,” Mallah grunted to himself. “It’s not him. It could be anyone. Anyone! It’s not him!”

The clothes were the clothes his master was wearing, or similar enough to seem identical. His master had no meetings today. Nothing to call him away from the lab.

They were going to spend the afternoon talking about poetry.

“It could be anyone!” Mallah rumbled. “The head – where is the head?”

He tore around the lab, trying not to come near the shattered fragments of the body. The head was the key! Where was it? It can’t have gotten far, not such a solid piece of the body. Even if it was torn apart, there would be fragments, brain matter, hints, something, anything!

Maybe his master was right outside, wondering what on earth had happened to his lab. Mallah mustn’t disturb the scene. Surely this was an accident, or, or a crime. They would find out what had happened, notify the next of kin, and then…

There was a bloody patch on the ground. Bright red arterial blood pooled around it, and on the linoleum, Mallah could just make out a print. A bloodstained face, the nose and cheek, had rested there.

And on the floor, faint, but not faint enough, another mark in the soot.

A footprint. A man’s. Dress shoes.

Mallah roared and pursued the prints to the nearest door. He ripped it open, glaring down the hall. There, at the end: a drop of red arterial blood.

He charged down through the department halls, following them out to the back parking lot. At the far edge of the lot, a silver sedan was quietly pulling away from the scene. Mallah could read the license plate from where he stood.

Between Mallah and the car were a dozen police officers, with rifles.

“Jesus Christ!” someone shouted. “Call Animal Control!”

“Stop that car!” Mallah roared, but the words were indistinguishable beneath the sudden sound of a rifle shot.

The bullet missed. Mallah, who picked the nearest officier up and threw him into the others, did not.

“Fire at will!” an officer ordered. Mallah let out a roar that cracked his throat and began to beat his way through the cluster of officers.

“Wait! Wait, you must wait!” a familiar voice shouted. Mallah paused, looking over his shoulder at the shouting man.

Dr. Caulder wheeled onto the scene, approaching Mallah with no fear. “Officers, please! This is not just an animal – are you, Mallah?”

Mallah snarled and let out a deafening roar in a policeman’s face.

“Mallah! Your creator would not have wanted this!” Dr. Caulder shouted. He reached out a hand for Mallah. “Put him down, for God’s sake, or they will kill you.”

“Dr. Caulder,” an official-looking person said, “step away from the–”

“Where is he?” Mallah bellowed.

“He’s dead, Mallah.”

“His head is missing!”

“It was probably destroyed in the explosion,” Dr. Caulder said. His face was a rictus of horror. “Mallah, please. Put him down and come away with me. We must think.”

Mallah felt those three words wash over him like an ice bath. Yes. Yes, they had to think. That was the only thing that would help his master now – blind, stupid instinct would be of no use. His master’s head had been taken, God Almighty only knew why, but if Mallah died in a police shootout there would be no way to recover it; nor to ever discover how and why his master’s laboratory had been attacked.

Mallah slowly, reluctantly, put the policeman down.

“There. Thank you,” Dr. Caulder sighed.

“Dr. Caulder,” the official ordered. “Get. Back.”

Dr. Caulder shook his head. “We’re all right! This is Mallah –”

“Monsieur Mallah,” Mallah rumbled.

“Yes, Monsieur Mallah. He’s the doctor’s assistant.”

The official hesitantly picked his way over towards them. He squinted at Mallah. “Is he dangerous?”

“Yes,” Dr. Caulder said. “Obviously. He’s a hyper-intelligent gorilla.”

“How do you do?” Mallah said darkly.

“But I will vouch for him,” Dr. Caulder went on. “Monsieur Mallah is well-known around the university. There’s not a soul that would wish to see him come to any harm, not least of all under these tragic circumstances.”

The official frowned severely but slowly nodded his head. “…very well. If you vouch for him..”

“I take complete responsibility for his actions,” Dr. Caulder said.

Mallah bristled but stayed quiet. No one took complete responsibility for his actions but him. Not even his master had been so presumptuous!

“Very well. Then if we may finally continue our investigation?” the official grumbled.

“Thank you, yes, of course,” Dr. Caulder agreed. “Please let us know any details as soon as you can share them. We’re terribly shaken up.”

“I’m sure,” the official said, and moved away.

Mallah glared after him. “Imbecile.”

“Enough. Now, listen to me,” Dr. Caulder said coolly. “We didn’t get along before and we don’t make much of a pair of friends. But I know your creator would not have wanted you to be simply exterminated. He invested too much in you for that.”

“I have very little control over whether human beings choose to exterminate me or not,” Mallah snapped. “I imagine that’s rather up to their discretion.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Dr. Caulder sneered. “You’re going to have to lay low for a while. Your creator had an impressive explanatory and conciliatory effect on the administration, and they will not want to keep you around if they don’t have him; not least of all if you’re going to be so emotionally unstable.”

Mallah gritted his teeth. It was true, damn him. Entirely true. “Are you proposing to lodge me, then?”

“It certainly beats the zoo, doesn’t it?”

Mallah looked back at the smoking building. “His head is missing. I know it. I saw a trail of blood.”

“A trail?” Dr. Caulder asked. Mallah glanced down at him – his little eyes were alight with focus. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Something happened to destroy his body, but not entirely his head. I saw prints of the face on the floor, smeared in blood, and followed it to a fleeing car.”

“You remember the license plate number?” Dr. Caulder asked.

“Of course I do,” Mallah said.

Dr. Caulder looked him up and down and slowly nodded his head. “…very well. I think I believe you. We should get you installed in my home and then we can turn over the information to the police. It might sound better coming from me. You understand.”

Mallah narrowed his eyes, unimpressed. “Completely.”

“Good. Come along. There’s a great deal to be done.”

* * *

Mallah stayed with Dr. Caulder only for a few hours. He was accustomed to far more freedom that Caulder wished to allow him. His skin prickled when he heard the lock on his door turn as night fell, but in the spirit of not causing much more ill will between himself and Caulder than he absolutely had to endure, he allowed the man to believe he’d locked Mallah in.

It wasn’t the first time Mallah had felt the value of learning to pick locks. The windows were the merest little inconvenience, even from the outside.

He struck out on a nocturnal ramble through Dr. Caulder’s palatial home and had just finished exploring most of the basement when he caught the sound of a thin metallic tone repeating the same set of sounds over and over again.

Mallah squinted and tilted his head, listening hard. The sound was coming from behind a door and he struggled to make it out. It might’ve been some kind of music, but Mallah wouldn’t swear to it – and if it was, it was of a very primitive kind.

Curious, Mallah soundlessly picked open the lock on the door and eased the panel open. The sound was only just out of the limit of his hearing. Mallah almost opened the door wider but stopped, hearing a disgusted huff in an all-too human voice. There was a tight click.

“Oh, do shut up,” Dr. Caulder’s voice sighed. “I wish I could’ve done that when you still had a body. This is a marvelous opportunity to explore the limitations of the independent human mind. You’re squandering it.”

Mallah frowned deeply and put his ear closer to the door.

“It is how we overcome our trauma that makes us truly unique, you know,” Caulder mused. “Some people suffer so much, so purposelessly, but it is in the suffering that they become more than they ever were before. Consider your own case: isn’t this much more groundbreaking than playing patty-cake with a simian?”

Mallah heard to a quiet metallic scraping sound.

“There, now,” Caulder sighed. “This should put thats brain of yours in a position to be of some real use… I’m going to turn you on again. Do try and have something more interesting to say this time, won’t you?”

_Click._

Mallah could hear it clearly now. What he’d mistaken for music was a tight, flat voice, like the uncanny pseudo-human voice of a computer. It was repeating a mantra that was all the more horrible for its lack of expression and its lack of air.

It was speaking French.

Mallah’s blood went cold. He pushed open the door and took in the room all in one glance.

Dr. Caulder was sitting beside a robotic body laid out on a metal slab. The top of the robot’s was missing. Over to the side of the head was a shallow metallic cylinder with a glass dome, and within that clear glass dome was a pinkish-grey human brain, sitting in a pale green nutrient bath.

On the far counter was his master’s decapitated head, drenched in blood. His master’s empty eyes stared at nothing. The bottom jaw had been ripped away, torn off by the explosion. The fragile skin of his face had been burned to the quick. The top of the skull had been sawed off.

Oblivious to Mallah’s presence, the metallic voice went on and on.

“Arrête. Ne fais pas ceci a moi. Je ne veux pas. Arrête. Ne fais pas ceci a moi. Je ne veux–”

Caulder’s face twisted, his awful eyes cold and wide in his head. He looked at Mallah and Mallah looked at him. Caulder reached to his side and produced a pistol.

“Get back, ape,” Caulder warned.

There were times for words and there were times for action. Mallah chose this moment for action. He lurched into the room and let out an enraged bellow. He heard the shot; felt the bullet tear through his shoulder; and kept moving forward.  Mallah reached out and seized the canister containing the brain, holding it under his arm and approaching Caulder. Caulder struck a button on his wheelchair arm and rolled backwards, eyes light with manic loathing. Mallah snarled and picked him up with his spare hand, hurling Caulder to the ground hard enough to bounce.

He would’ve done more, but within the house lights had begun to flash and a klaxon shrilled. He tucked the cylinder with the brain closer against his body and broke for the exit, hurling himself and his master’s disembodied brain out of the nearest window to the outside and disappearing into the night.

He didn’t stop running until they were far, far away. The metallic voice had gone long silent, and when Mallah was sure that Caulder was too interested in self-preservation to send police after them – awful lot of awkward questions that would elicit – he found an abandoned warehouse to use as a hideaway.

It was only when he put the cylinder down that he managed to get a good look at it. The brain seemed rooted to the base of the glass dome, with electrodes attached to certain ripples and folds of the tissue.

Mallah had seen animal organs before, and had observed a few human surgeries. His master had taught him both ape and human anatomy.

He’d still never seen a living brain before.

“Master?” Mallah breathed.

The brain was silent. So was the apparatus keeping it alive.

“Are you all right?” Mallah asked. He winced as he said it. “We’re alone.”

“Mallah. Mon petit monsieur,” the device said. Mallah knew it had to be his master’s brain, but he still wasn’t prepared for the way confirmation of the fact beat all the air out of his lungs. He stared at the brain beneath the dome. The air felt too cold on his eyes.

“Yes, master. Can you see me?”

“Yes.” His master paused. “He murdered me, Mallah.”

Mallah had never had to face grief before. For all his intellect, all his reading, he found himself absolutely helpless. “I–”

“He murdered me, Mallah,” his master repeated. Mallah frowned a little. Was the repetition a glitch? “Because he was jealous of my research. And he tried to put my brain in that machine.”

Mallah sat in silence.

“It was an experiment,” his master said. The steady drone of the emotionless voice made Mallah’s nerves ache. His accent was gone. “He murdered me. He cut apart my body. He preserved my brain. He wanted to use me as a test subject.”

“Master–”

“I’m going to destroy him,” his master said.

Mallah’s heart hiccuped. “Wh…what?”

“I am going to destroy Niles Caulder, Mallah. He murdered me and desecrated my body, and now I’m going to break every single part of him. I’m going to poison the air he breathes. And I’m going to make the wide world and everyone he’s ever loved hate his guts. And when he comes groveling on his belly for mercy, I’m going to beat him until I can’t see through the blood splashing into my eyes.”

Mallah sat there with his mouth open. Rage? From his master? Rage had never been a comfortable emotion for Mallah – it was so much more primitive than more abstract emotions, like consternation or disappointment. He didn’t know how to respond to his own rage appropriately.

There was nothing clean about rage. It was all dirty, desperate animal reaction. His master had never said such a thing before. His master had never been enraged like this.

If his master had still had lips to purse, Mallah would not have been able to control himself.

His master wasn’t done speaking. “I cannot do this as a disembodied brain. I have to ask you, Mallah: will you help me?”

Mallah ran a hand over the dome of his master’s vessel. It was cool, and perfectly smooth, and he cupped it in his palm, protected and secure.

“Oh yes,” Mallah breathed. He caught himself and swallowed hard. “Absolutely, master. Just tell me where you want to start.”

* * *

He knows right from wrong, of course. Mallah’s a sophisticated, independent thinker with a very strong mind all his own. Why does he go along with it? Why does he follow his master into this dark abyss?

Because starving is slow. Thirst is only a little faster. Burning to death can last an unspeakable two hours.

Suffocation is comparatively quick but all reports declare it to be just as horrific. An independent life form’s first instinct is to breathe, after all, and within three endless minutes of supreme agony, the mind begins to rot. In terms of immediate survival, no need is as dire as the need for air.

An organism fights to breathe under any and all circumstances. It will try and breathe mud, water, and toxic gas. Persons executed by gas chamber will hold their breath as long as they can, desperate not to inhale, until their bodies – clinging to life, ignorant of the mind’s own failing bid to preserve its existence – break and take in a gulp of raw cyanide. No amount of discipline can adequately control or eliminate the need for air.

Breathing is unconscious – the body pursues breath even in sleep, and there are few diseases as debiliating and as nightmarish as congenital central hypoventilation syndrome. Breath is the mind’s constant prerogative: fill the lungs. The heart doesn’t feed without it. The blood starves. Taking away air is a psychological torment, almost as much as physical – there are few things that break a man’s psyche as quickly as the act of preventing him from breathing, and folklore attests again and again to the horror of drowning, of strangling, of having one’s breath stolen away.

Why does he go along with it? Because sometimes, when they wake from sleep, his master will start to consciousness in a fit of panicky, hiccuping terror. It reaches Mallah’s ears voiced by an emotionless, expressionless metallic speaker that doesn’t even gasp. He can only imagine what that voice must sound like to his master, echoing back a mocking recitation of his nightmare.

_“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”_

There is nothing Mallah can do to soothe or comfort that. He can only sit, arms wrapped around his master’s cylinder, and hold him. He can only protect the scraps of his master that are left, and do everything in his power to be his master’s body and work his master’s will, until they can give his master the form he so deserves.

So of course Mallah wants to see Caulder dead. Of course he wants his master to enjoy dominion over all and anything he could desire, and wants watch his master’s enemies writhe beneath his master’s heel. And of course Mallah doesn’t care what they do to ensure that his master gets what he wants. How could it matter what suffering others have endured, do endure, when his master has been tortured worse than anything Mallah could’ve imagined?

Food, water, touch and sex… deprive a man of them all. Beat him, burn him, brutalize him, cut him into pieces. Mallah doesn’t care. Those aren’t torture. Those aren’t half-torture.

It’s been nearly two decades since the explosion, and the Brain hasn’t taken a breath in sixteen years.


End file.
